How is collective action with youth in Uganda
advancing farmer prosperity?
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How is collective action with youth in Uganda
Answering a call to empower local youth and to provide more services to smallholder farmers, the GCP Collective Action Initiative “Ugandan Youth for Coffee” has a goal of achieving long-term prosperity for Ugandan Coffee farmers and increased job opportunities for youths within the coffee sector.
With a focus on agroforestry and the renovation and rehabilitation of coffee trees in Uganda, the initiative works with rural youth to provide services to smallholder coffee farmers who have older, unproductive trees. Youth and farmers are identified and reached directly by working closely with three local implementing partners, Ankole Coffee Producers Cooperative Union (ACPCU), Uganda Coffee Farmers Alliance (UCFA) and Just Know your Coffee Cup limited (JKCC), in 10 coffee growing districts, with another two partners currently being onboarded.
“The uniqueness about the initiative is that it brings together various roasters, traders, institutional organizations…to address the salient issues that affect the coffee sector.”
Caroline Nabukwasi, Program Manager Cafe Africa
The initiative, which provides Ugandan youth with skills that can help them find employment and create businesses throughout the coffee value chain, has already registered some early successes including the training of some 90 youth in coffee agronomy and service provision business skills. In addition, the initiative has equipped participants with a set of tools as kick-off capital to reach out to farmers.
Close to 3,500 farmers have been reached with coffee rehabilitation services with 156 setting up private arrangement and payment for additional services.
“The youth engaging in coffee will be so beneficial to me. This will ensure that my coffee garden is at the standard it needs to be so that I get a great yield,” said Lugonjo Livingstone, participating farmer from Luwero District.
Voices from Uganda
The initiative seeks to reach at least 30,000 farmers and ultimately promote sustainable coffee production for a new generation of coffee farmers and falls in line with GCP’s 2030 goal of transformational change for more than one million farmers in more than 10 countries.
GCP Collective Action Initiatives are pre-competitive to bring learnings and results back to the sector in order to learn, scale and replicate, making input resources more effective. Please be encouraged and invited to join this initiative and contribute to its success.
